


the best weapon

by Skyepilot



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Background Relationships, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Inhumans (Marvel), Love, Love Confessions, Male-Female Friendship, Older Man/Younger Woman, Singing, Soulmates, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 12:11:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13235475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/pseuds/Skyepilot
Summary: For #cousywinter. Kind of a twist on the prompt: Coulson being impressed by Daisy’s caroling skills.





	the best weapon

It feels late, whether it is or not, he can't say. Only that the lights in the hallways of the ship have dimmed and that it feels very still.

Going from the prison existence of the Lighthouse to this new sort of freedom has left him somewhat unsettled. Not in a bad way, it's given him that spark of hope that is visible and not just hoped for.

Now he's walking the halls thinking, trying to focus that excess energy into a plan.

All the Inhumans they've brought with them are tucked away, safe from the Kree for now, and the team is back together again.

He passes Enoch, heading through the metal passage, realizing that he's moving towards a sound, towards where the engines are at. It reminds him of being on the Zephyr and how he's craving some of that familiarity, when he hears a low noise, rhythmic in its own way.

"Then one foggy Christmas Eve  
Santa came to say  
"Rudolph, with your nose so bright  
Won't you guide my sleigh tonight?"

"This deer had a gift, like me?" Abby asks, sitting on the crate in the engine room, watching Daisy intently.

"Yeah, you could say that. He would light the way, even though not everyone saw it at first," she replies.

"And this is the legend of...Rudolph," Abby goes on, sitting up excitedly. "Is there more to this story?"

"That's mostly what it's about," Daisy tells her. "But it's only a story. I'm sure there are records that would help to fill in the blanks?"

"I don't think so," Abby says with a shake of her head. "I remember Virgil mentioning it before, but people think SHIELD is a story, too."

He watches Daisy kneel down before her, and put her hands on her arms. "Leading doesn't always mean having to prove your worth, it's not a contest. It's about helping others."

Abby's eyes get large and she stares at back at Daisy. "I never asked to be special."

"There is another verse, though," he says, moving from his position near the entrance to get further inside the engine room.

Daisy straightens up at his presence and moves in closer to Abby, putting a hand on her shoulder. He thinks it's probably for both of them.

"What is it?" Abby asks, distracted by looking between the two of them, waiting for someone to say something. "I want to hear it."

Coulson nods his head at the girl, and starts to say, "Then how the reindeer-"

"You could at least sing it," Daisy interrupts him, and his eyes meet hers again, and he catches the corner of her mouth pulling upward. He could never say no to her, anyway.

"Then how the reindeer loved him  
As they shouted out with glee  
"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer  
You'll go down in history"

His voice cracks a little at the end, and he can't even remember the last time he sang. Not for himself, but certainly not for anyone else and Abby's face lights up and it warms his heart.

And Daisy's eyes. Daisy's eyes are....something else.

"They were so mean to him before, though," she asks them, looking up at their strange staring match.

"They just didn't understand that she was the last piece to solving their problem," Coulson tells her, nodding down at her. "Without Rudolph, they'd never get the work done."

"I thought Rudolph wasn't a girl," Abby asks, cocking her head a little, like she's used to being lied to.

"Rudolph's a girl in my version," Coulson replies to her with a smirk. "But you know what? It's been a long day. I think I'm going to turn in."

They both say goodbye to him, and he lingers for a moment at the opening to the hall, listening to their quiet conversation resume.

Listening to Daisy promise that they'll help her family at the Lighthouse.

  
###

  
"Rudolph?" he asks her, as they're loading up supplies for the mission in the weapons room.

"You have a really nice singing voice," she replies, checking through their tracking beacons. "Has anyone ever told you that? I mean, besides your mother?"

He silently chuckles at the deflection and closes the case he was into. "Delivering presents to all the good boys and girls?"

"Kasius and Sinara are on the naughty list," she replies to him. "I'm planning on giving them more than coal in their stockings this year."  
  
"While the rest of us evacuate the families," he says, repeating back the mission goals. "Get everyone far away. From the Kree, right?"

"Abby has a lot of compassion," she tells him, her hands seeming suddenly extra busy. "She needs her family, and to not just be a weapon."

"You're not just a weapon, Daisy," he says, looking down at the case again, putting his hands on its closed surface.

They haven't had a lot of time to talk about everything that's been going on. Prophecies and spacetime. The feeling that they're supposed to fix all of this but they also might have caused it somehow.

She gets very still and then reaches forward with a hand and touches his prosthetic, and it feels like someone is squeezing his heart.

"What if I am a weapon? The one that finally puts a stop to all of this?"

"I don't believe that. I never have from the moment I first heard it, but now it sounds like you're starting to believe it," he answers back and then realizes how sharp his tone is, the fear in it. "I'm sorry."

"Coulson, there is a plan, we're working together," she reminds him, ducking her head so that he'll look her in the eyes again. She seems so confident, even with all that she's carrying. "It's not just a solo mission this time."

He wants her to feel that way, and she's earned the right to lead this, to lay it all out on the line and she's certainly powerful enough to do it, even though she's never been so comfortable with that kind of power.

"I know," he nods. "Just promise me," he says, swallowing, holding onto the words and then just letting them fall out, "That you won't do something reckless and-"

"Stupid?" she finishes his sentence with a raise of her eyebrow, almost amused at the suggestion.

But how could she possibly think that? No, he's not talking about that.

"Impulsive," he replies back to her quickly, his voice low and he's having a hard time standing still suddenly. "Heroically impulsive, and-"

For the first time in forever, he doesn't have words to match his feelings.

Daisy has kissed him. Is kissing him.

Then she stops.

No. Why? He's not talking. Is it making it worse? She's just staring at him while he's not talking.

And he still can't find the words.

"Interesting," she says to him, then shuts her case and walks off to leave him standing there.

"Daisy."

He says it after she's already out of sight.

  
###

  
"We ended up in space," he shrugs, looking out the porthole. "Nothing will surprise me. Ever again."

"You think it's that surprising?" she asks him quietly, from her seat next to him on the transport bench.

"I mean, yes," he tells her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. "Hey, I'm surprisingly old fashioned, so I might have missed a few cues."

"You definitely know how to miss a few cues," Elena smiles up at him. "What, you two are eight years apart, and I'm at least a-"

"Yes, I see your point, thank you," Mack nods.

"It's just math, Mack," she teases.

"And he did think she was going to die," he interrupts her.

Elena starts to laugh at him. "You think it was about that? Have you seen what this man does when it comes to her?" she says, gesturing across the aisle.

"Guys," he says, wincing slightly with his shoulders, his eyebrows pushed together. "I'm right here."

"How is Daisy?" Mack asks him with concern. "She awake yet?"

"I think I'll go check on her," Coulson asks, standing up from his seat and heading towards the makeshift medbay on the transport.

He passes some of the team training people from the Lighthouse on their operations and then finally stops at the windowed door and sees Daisy inside, sitting up and talking to Abby and her mother. There are still some cuts and bruises on her face.

The door swishes open as he enters and he checks the monitor readings briefly, and smiles at them all.

Abby smiles back at him widely and then her mother ushers them out as he looks back up at Daisy.

"What did you say again, about being impulsively heroic?" she mentions, folding her hands across her lap on the bed.

"We don't leave people behind," he tells her, coming around to the side of the bed.

"I think that made quite an impression on everyone," she sighs and lays back again, trying to get comfortable as he reaches forward silently to offer help, and she raises again and lets him readjust the pillows. "Thanks."

She gives him a small smile, but it's enough that he sits down on the bench next to the bed.

"I also sometimes, can't exactly express my feelings, and they come out a bit...impulsively. As you might have noticed-"

"At least you said something this time," she smiles more widely.

"And you said," he sighs, thinking back to the moment, and how easily the flood of emotions comes back. Life and death and it all hanging in this fragile balance.

The center of it all, Daisy. Holding spacetime apart to save them all. Making a way for them to cross through with their impossible plan.

From the moment they met. There is no real explanation for it, it just is.

He leans down and kisses her forehead, lets his lips linger there, feeling her warm and alive beneath them.

She groans and so he sits back and looks at her pull back the covers slightly to look over her injuries.

"Does it hurt?" he asks, because he's not sure what type of medication they have here, even though Simmons is doing her best with what they've got.

"It's my stomach," she says, then leans back and closes her eyes. "I'm starving."

That, he can definitely do something about. He stands up to get to work on it when she reaches out and grabs his hand, the flesh and blood one.

"It turns out I'm a pretty lousy weapon," she says with a tired sigh.

"The best weapon of all," he tells her with a smile in his voice.

Her eyes peek open for a moment to look at him staring at her, then she smiles and turns on her side to hide her expression.

They'll have to work on that.


End file.
